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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26029168">Earth Is My Ship</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumixedia/pseuds/lumixedia'>lumixedia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Counting by the Millions [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bittersweet, Book 5: Nemesis Games, Book 6: Babylon's Ashes, Book 7: Persepolis Rising, Book 8: Tiamat's Wrath, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Growing Old, Minor Character Death, Old Age, Older Characters, Redemption</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:20:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,728</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26029168</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumixedia/pseuds/lumixedia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how hard the world convulses, Chrisjen Avasarala will be there to hold it steady. And if she can even save her old student Sadavir Errinwright along with it, so much the better. Because after so much has been lost, now is the time to hold on to whoever is left.</p>
<p>Some glimpses of Chrisjen's life in the years after Book 6: Babylon's Ashes. Makes reference to events up to the prologue of Book 8: Tiamat's Wrath. Characters based mostly on show canon up to S3E6: Immolation.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Arjun/Chrisjen Avasarala, Chrisjen Avasarala &amp; Bobbie Draper, Chrisjen Avasarala &amp; Sadavir Errinwright, Chrisjen Avasarala/Sadavir Errinwright</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Counting by the Millions [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1879624</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Earth Is My Ship</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>(Four years after the rocks)</em>
</p>
<p>"Ma'am," said the overeager intern, "may I ask a question?"</p>
<p>Chrisjen rolled her eyes. "Could I stop you if I wanted?"</p>
<p>"It's just," said the overeager intern, "that I recently learned that dozens, if not hundreds, of major prisons were completely abandoned when the rocks fell. And that the UN has never even tried to track those prisoners down. Including some very, very high-profile ones."</p>
<p>"Yes," Chrisjen said irritably. "For some reason, using our nonexistent resources to rebuild our prisons and recapture our prisoners so that we can guarantee them food, shelter, and security while the rest of the world starves hasn't been a top fucking priority for us."</p>
<p>"No, I get that," the overeager intern said quickly. "But I still thought maybe it'd be worth, you know, just figuring out where they all are. Even if we don't have the option of bringing them back yet. It just seems like it'd be good to know."</p>
<p>Chrisjen tilted her head. "Are you proposing that you, personally, on your own time and for no additional compensation, undertake this project? As a purely educational exercise in logistics and detective work?"</p>
<p>"Yes!" the overeager intern nodded energetically. "Exactly!"</p>
<p>Chrisjen snorted. "I can't say no to that, can I?"</p>
<p>Which was how, not much later, she ended up staring at Sadavir Errinwright's new address on her screen.</p>
<p>Chrisjen's job these days was relentlessly depressing. Obviously. Once she had presided over a flourishing planet so wealthy that most of its thirty billion inhabitants had never experienced work or responsibility. Now she spent her time trying to rebuild a facsimile of a functional society from ashes and dust. She counted the people she saved like a miser counting coins, adding up a thousand here and a million there, all of them a drop in the ocean of the suffering and dying and dead.</p>
<p>From which perspective, it made no difference whether she did or didn't save one more. Even if the one was once her best student and most reliable colleague. Or her archnemesis and attempted murderer.</p>
<p>She sent the address to her scheduling assistant.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sadavir had, one way or another, found a gray little room in the middle of a high-rise in the middle of who knows where. She knocked on the door, two of her staff hovering behind her.</p>
<p>He was bone-thin, ragged, like everyone else on Earth. His expression was comically indecisive, as if he were desperately running through a catalogue of emotions, unable to find any that fit the situation. Finally he seemed to settle on a mixture of irony and resignation with a dash of relief and a hint of unexpected joy, which made no sense, but no less sense than anything else. "Chr-Chrisjen," he said, moving his mouth carefully, as if he hadn't spoken to another human in a long time and had forgotten how. And then again: "Chrisjen," as if it were important to him to get it right, the sound of her name in his voice. "Have you finally rebuilt my old prison cell? I hope that's why you've come. I liked it better than the new one." He gestured behind him. "It was in a better world."</p>
<p>"No, I didn't come to lock you back up," she said. "Only to check in on you."</p>
<p>"Oh." He frowned a little. "Come on in, then."</p>
<p>She followed him in to the tired gray room. He had no furniture, so they sat cross-legged on the floor. Her staff drew back, hovering suspiciously in front of the door.</p>
<p>"So," she said. "Tell me about the last few years."</p>
<p>Sadavir picked at the cuffs of a shirt which, now that she looked at it carefully, might have been one he'd been given in prison, though it was hard to tell. "After the attack, the guards at my prison ignored the lockdown order, turned off the locks, and walked away. So I walked away too. I...went looking for Jefferson and Jodie for a while, but...well. Their residence was at a tsunami site, but...there was no concrete evidence that they'd been there at the time. And it's not like they never traveled. But I didn't find them."</p>
<p>"I'm sorry," Chrisjen said quietly. Sadavir's child and ex-wife had been quite pleasant at parties before everything went wrong. "I never found Arjun."</p>
<p>"I'm sorry."</p>
<p>After a long silence, she asked, "So how are you doing now?"</p>
<p>He shrugged. "Now I eat and sleep and watch the news. Just like before, really. Like before, but this planet is my prison now, and so is my heart."</p>
<p>She startled a little. <em>Like before, but this--planet is my prison now--and so is my heart</em>. Her ears, long trained by Arjun, counted off the haiku. It was probably an accident. She didn't bother to ask.</p>
<p>Instead she remarked, her voice deceptively mild, "In a way, we got what you wanted. Mars is a hollow shell of its former self, its remaining resources totally at our mercy. And the cost...was foreseeable. So was it worth it?"</p>
<p>Sadavir scowled. "Don't blame me for not predicting the arrival of a thousand new Earths on our doorstep. Of course now people feel free to pretend this planet is replaceable. Of course now my life's work seems petty and meaningless. But it's the same for you too, isn't it? Everything we lived and worked for, everything we fought for--fought <em>each other</em> for--is gone. Wiped off the map as if we never even existed. So why are we still here?"</p>
<p>Chrisjen looked at him carefully. What she had intellectually understood must be true, she could finally see with her eyes: Sadavir Errinwright was absolutely miserable.</p>
<p>She shifted a little on the hard, dirty floor. "Everything we did, wiped off the map," she agreed softly. "Leaving a clean slate. It's funny. Did you know Clarissa Mao has been shipping with James Holden for years? I hear she's quite close to the crew these days. They take care of her, protect her. Like family."</p>
<p>She watched him freeze. Twist his hands together. Look up at her, his expression as if he had suddenly found himself balanced on a high, swaying tightrope. "Are you--" he stopped. Seemed to find the question hard to ask. "Are you--offering me a berth on your ship?"</p>
<p>"If Earth is my ship." Chrisjen reached out, taking both his hands in one of hers. His fingers were cold and shockingly thin, and they trembled against her palm. She thought: Clarissa Mao was born and raised in her father's personality cult, and she was barely an adult when she broke out. Your excuse isn't nearly as good. On the other hand, there's a lot more room on Earth than the <em>Rocinante</em>.</p>
<p>"After four years," she said, "the rolls of the dead are still staggeringly incomplete. They name neither your losses nor mine. We don't even have a comprehensive list of mass graves or a way to track whether they've been fully DNA-tested, let alone a system to locate people who aren't in one. We've had our hands too full with the needs of the living. I'd like you to lead a task force to fill in the gaps. Hopefully reunite some people with the bodies of their family members. Count every victim of this crime, and make sure not a single one is forgotten."</p>
<p>She had chosen the job carefully. It was one that would require real skill, which few but him could be trusted with. It was one of only symbolic importance, with which he could not regain political influence. And it was one that she couldn't help but hope, after all this time, might still teach him a lesson. <em>In a way, we got what you wanted, and the cost was foreseeable. Just help me check the receipt.</em></p>
<p>"If you do a good job," she added as an afterthought, "I'll put you officially on parole. It makes no difference now, but we'll have a real justice system back eventually, and then it will."</p>
<p>Sadavir's fingers trembled harder in hers. "Chrisjen," he whispered wonderingly, "you just really never, ever, ever give up, do you?"</p>
<p><em>Not on a planet, not on a person.</em> She smiled at him. "I'm stubborn. I know."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>(Nine years after the rocks)</em>
</p>
<p>Sadavir burst into Chrisjen's office without an appointment, his eyes wild.</p>
<p>Chrisjen froze. Braced herself. There were exactly three things this could mean.</p>
<p>"I found. Them," he said. His breathing was off.</p>
<p>"Them?" she echoed, stupidly.</p>
<p>"All of them. J-jefferson. Jodie. Arjun. They were all. In the same place. Isn't it ridiculous? Even our families can't. Escape each other."</p>
<p>"Ah," she said weakly.</p>
<p>Obviously, if Chrisjen had had to pick someone to sit and hold and cry with for the next few hours, Sadavir Errinwright wouldn't have been her first choice. But her first choice was dead, so Sadavir it was. Cruel, strange world.</p>
<p>He had never regained the weight he'd lost after the attack, nor had his hands stopped trembling. He shook in her arms like a bundle of twigs in a storm. Her own tears--for Arjun, and for everyone and everything else lost beneath the rocks--were less restrained than they'd ever been before, even in private. As if she needed the person who had cut her most deeply there to break down her walls.</p>
<p>"What I just can't believe," he sniffled into her shoulder, "is that you, of all people, are all I have left."</p>
<p>"Harder to get rid of than you hoped, am I?" she murmured.</p>
<p>His sobs mingled with gulps of wild laughter. "That's not...I didn't...appreciate..." he couldn't finish the thought. Instead he pressed his face deeper into her shoulder, as if he could hide there from the past.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>(Twenty years after the rocks)</em>
</p>
<p>The UN ceremony to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the attacks on Earth adopted an aggressively hopeful, forward-looking tone. It was the first major anniversary during which it seemed believable that the planet could ever be restored to its past glory, and the government meant to milk that for every drop. Sadavir hovered in a corner at the reception. Nobody wanted to talk to him. He was the gray ghost representing the dead at a gathering where everyone else preferred to focus on the living.</p>
<p>There were probably other reasons, too.</p>
<p>But now he noticed with alarm that two figures were moving toward him. Emily Richards and Nathan Smith, both ex-Prime Ministers of Mars. Richards was leading, marching with purpose, a full wine glass held out in front of her like a weapon, with a look that made clear she was spoiling for a fight. Smith was trailing and seemed nonplussed.</p>
<p>Richards stopped in front of Sadavir. "Look who turned up in the salvage," she hissed, with a disdain that was a lot like Chrisjen's. "<em>Sa-da-vir Er-rin-wright</em>"--every syllable pronounced slowly and emphatically, as if his name were a curse--"Chrisjen's pet murderous warmonger. Tell us, is it true what they say? That you had Pyotr Korshunov poisoned at the opera house, but took him to your office afterwards just so you could watch him die?"</p>
<p>"Pyotr was also a murderous warmonger, though," Smith commented meekly.</p>
<p>"Irrelevant," Richards snapped. She hadn't touched her wine. Sadavir suspected she was holding it not as a drink but as an excuse. "The real problem is, if anyone else at the UN had adopted Korshunov's murderer, we could have made it into a diplomatic incident. But <em>Chrisjen</em> gets to have the excuse of"--she gestured with her free hand and switched on her best Chrisjen Avasarala voice--"oh, well, he tried to kill me <em>too</em>, so that makes it all better!"</p>
<p>It was quite a good impression, actually. Sadavir noticed that he was smiling and wondered if that was making the situation better or worse.</p>
<p>"Emily," Smith said nervously, "what are you trying to accomplish here?"</p>
<p>"I'm just burning with curiosity about <em>why</em>," Richards said loudly. "Chrisjen is normally a <em>rational person</em>. She supposedly does things for <em>reasons</em>. So I've been brainstorming reasons, and I've come up with a few possibilities--"</p>
<p>"We could just ask her," Smith pointed out.</p>
<p>Richards ignored him. "<em>Possibility one</em>: you're a symbol of dominance. Like a tiger on a leash, defanged and declawed. The message is: anyone can throw a war criminal in prison, but <em>I</em> can make him love Big Sister."</p>
<p>Sadavir snorted at "Big Sister". Big Sister Chrisjen. That was a good one.</p>
<p>"<em>Possibility two</em>: you're a symbol of defiance. The message is: I can fix anything. I can fix a planet so broken it's nothing but blood and ash, and I can fix a person so broken he would've cheered if it'd been any planet but his."</p>
<p>That was less funny. "I would not have--"</p>
<p>"<em>Possibility three</em>: you're meant as a warning. The message is: many other people in this room are just as dangerous, but they're walking around without treason convictions and ankle bracelets. If you were behind bars they'd still be right here plotting war. Watch out for them." She jabbed her still-full glass at his chest. "So, <em>Sa-da-vir Er-rin-wright</em>, which is it? Why does she keep you around?"</p>
<p>"None of those possibilities were mutually exclusive, Emily," said Chrisjen, who had apparently snuck up on them and been listening the whole time without anyone noticing. Richards spun around to stare at her.</p>
<p>"But," Chrisjen added, "you should also include Possibility Four: Sadavir was my student. I feel responsible for him." And with that she walked away.</p>
<p>Richards watched Chrisjen go, mouth open. As soon as the latter was too far away to hear, she spun back towards Sadavir, stabbed him in the chest with the index finger of her free hand, and hissed, "<em>You. Don't. Fucking. Deserve. Her.</em>"</p>
<p>"I know," Sadavir said, "but in my defense, who does?"</p>
<p>Richards seemed suddenly taken aback, like he'd passed a test she hadn't realized she was giving. "Huh," she said grudgingly. "That was a good answer."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>(Twenty-five years after the rocks)</em>
</p>
<p>Bobbie was at Chrisjen Avasarala's retirement party.</p>
<p>It was a huge party, and in some ways rather awful. Specifically, while she understood that it was normal for politicians' parties to have some guests who were current or former enemies of the host or each other, she felt Chrisjen had taken the concept to an extreme. For example, Sadavir Errinwright was there. Though at least he had the good grace to sit in a corner, not trying to talk to anyone, absorbing dirty looks from the other guests with quiet resignation. He'd clearly been through this before. Bobbie considered adding her own dirty look to the pile, but it seemed slightly hypocritical, since she herself had come to the party with the entire crew of the Rocinante, Clarissa Mao included.</p>
<p>Instead, after thinking about it, she went over to introduce herself.</p>
<p>"Mr. Errinwright," she said, sticking out her hand for him to shake, "I'm Bobbie Draper."</p>
<p>He gave her an astonished look, but reached up and took her hand. His, she noticed, had a bad tremor. "Yes, Sergeant Draper. I remember you. Chrisjen's favorite Martian marine."</p>
<p>"Yes." And because there was no point talking to him unless she <em>really</em> talked to him, she added, "Because I saved her life once."</p>
<p>Errinwright's face broke into a strange half-smile. He'd seen that coming. "From me."</p>
<p>"From you."</p>
<p>"Well, thank you," he said. "In the end, I do believe that was for the best."</p>
<p>Bobbie raised her eyebrows.</p>
<p>"I mean," Errinwright tried to explain, "can you imagine if it had been me instead of her in charge when the rocks fell? Or <em>anyone</em> instead of her?"</p>
<p>"You don't have to convince <em>me</em>," Bobbie said. "My faith in Chrisjen Avasarala has no limits. From the moment I met her, I have never gone wrong by following where she pointed. What I'd like to know is <em>your</em> angle. You were her worst enemy. What changed?"</p>
<p>"We were never enemies, Sergeant Draper, and nothing changed." Errinwright's hands trembled as he spoke, but his voice was as steady as the automatic one in her armor. "Sure, we had a terrible disagreement once. I thought I was saving the world from her. She thought she was saving it from me. We never found out who was right, because the world changed so fast that it didn't matter anymore. But even before that, even when it mattered the most, she was never my enemy. Just the opposite. And that didn't change with one disagreement."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Admiral Kajri Avasarala, the UN's new fleet commander, stood with her Nani at the same party, gently supporting her by the arm.</p>
<p>"It's a funny coincidence," she remarked, "that I'm getting my big promotion just as you step down. Symbolic."</p>
<p>Nani groaned. "That's a horrifying thought."</p>
<p>A predictable reaction. "So many years you've carried the world on your shoulders alone, with nobody to catch you if you fall. You shouldn't feel guilty about passing that burden on."</p>
<p>"I always feel guilty about everything." Nani turned to face her, raising her free hand to brush a strand of stray hair from Kajri's face. "It would be so much easier for me if you were more like your sister."</p>
<p>"If I were less like you."</p>
<p>"If you were less like me. Every time you lift your foot I wait for you to put it down in any footstep but mine. You never do. Even though you've seen where those steps go."</p>
<p>It was true, and Kajri knew it must be hard to watch, and there was nothing she could do about it. "I'm sorry," she said. "But the world needs more like you, Nani, and it never has enough. So I have to follow you if I can. I can afford the price, and I'm not afraid. Promise."</p>
<p>Nani sighed and said nothing, only continued to lean on her arm.</p>
<p>Kajri's eyes wandered around the room, landing on a thin, hunched figure in a far corner. "Actually," she corrected herself, "I am afraid of one thing. I'm afraid of imagining that I'm being you, when actually I'm being <em>him</em>, and having no way to tell."</p>
<p>Nani responded to that with a brilliant smile. "Such a smart girl. I didn't worry nearly enough about that when I was your age."</p>
<p>(Kajri was not, in any sense, a girl. Even Kajri's daughters weren't girls. But Nani knew that.)</p>
<p>"It helps that you've kept him around to show me," she said. "A very useful cautionary tale."</p>
<p>"I'm not sure about <em>useful</em>." Nani shook her head. "You said it yourself. It could happen that you have no way to tell. And then you still have no choice but to keep going, and keep trying to be better. That's the trouble with people like us. Sometimes we're wrong, and there's nothing to be done about it." She glanced at the ghost in the far corner. "That's why I forgave him, you know. It was the first step to forgiving myself."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>(Thirty-one years after the rocks)</em>
</p>
<p>Sadavir and Chrisjen were sitting in a park, on Earth, in wheelchairs. Except for the others who should have been there, it was almost like the retirement he had pictured before the protomolecule showed up. Which was rather a miracle, if you thought about everything that had happened since then. A small token from the universe to apologize for all the suffering, or a way for it to twist the knife? But then again, it was mostly Chrisjen's doing--Chrisjen surviving his attempt on her life, Chrisjen saving him after the rocks fell, Chrisjen rebuilding Earth--so perhaps he should say a small token from <em>her</em>, or a twist of <em>her</em> knife.</p>
<p>They were sitting at a tiny round table set to display an image of a chessboard with little holographic chess pieces above it. Neither of them had ever had time to learn how to play, but it was a cute table.</p>
<p>Chrisjen, of course, was complaining.</p>
<p>"I bet Duarte's going to bury me on Laconia and I won't be able to do a goddamn thing about it," she grumbled.</p>
<p>"Whereas nobody will try to drag me away from Earth, because nobody even remembers I exist," Sadavir said cheerfully. "So I did one thing right after all."</p>
<p>"I timed getting old all wrong," she continued. "I should've either died before Laconia showed up or hung on for however long it'll take to defeat it. But one didn't happen and the other won't. The only difference between a triumph and a tragedy is when the music stops."</p>
<p>"You should've seen it coming." Sadavir pressed his always-shaking fingers to the chessboard and tried to challenge himself to trace its lines. He did poorly. "The wizened chess-masters in the old stories never reach the promised land. They have to die at the darkest moment so the next generation learns how to win the war on their own instead of running crying to their elders. Those are the rules."</p>
<p>"Are you comparing me to--good Lord." She laughed. "Well, fingers fucking crossed the next generation has learned something."</p>
<p>"I'm not worried about that. You're the best teacher I ever had."</p>
<p>She glared at him. "And what good did that do us all?"</p>
<p> He didn't have an answer to that. He lowered his eyes and made another attempt at tracing the chessboard lines.</p>
<p>She watched him for a while. Then she said, "enough of that," and her hands darted out to press over his. If her goal was to stop his fingers from shaking then she failed, but her touch still comforted him to the bone. He closed his eyes gratefully.</p>
<p>"I don't think it matters when the music stops," he said.</p>
<p>"Really."</p>
<p>"Even if the aliens come and kill us all tomorrow. Or even if we keep surviving and spreading until the stars go out and entropy kills us all instead. What matters is that things have been better while you've been here than they would've been if you weren't. For me, for our planet, for this universe. And if even I know that now..." He squeezed her hands. It seemed like the sort of thing that should have cost him to admit, but sitting peacefully with her under a perfect blue Earth sky, it was impossible for him to care. "That means you win, Chrisjen. You always win."</p>
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